Today marks the one year anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly officially declaring that safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. If you think this is UN jargon, think again. It’s a big deal. Instead of me telling you why, let me quote the words of the UN Independent Expert on the subject, Catarina de Albuquerque: Read more

I recently returned from the Global Water Summit in Berlin, Germany, where I’d spent two days with more than 400 water experts from the public and private sectors and engaging in lively discussions about corporate water stewardship and performance. The conference was a great opportunity to share best practices with experts from across the world, including other corporations, academics journalists and politicians. During the summit, I participated in a panel discussion about the value of water footprinting – defined as “the total volume of fresh water used to produce the goods and services produced by a business.” One of my fellow panelists, Dr. Ashok Chapagain from the WWF, stated that a stand-alone water footprint number would be of little use to consumers without a veritable bible of supporting information.  Other panelists echoed the observation, including Marcus Norton, head of Carbon Disclosure Project Water Disclosure, an organization... Read more

I can’t help but think of the worldwide web when I see WWW but, in this case, it stands for World Water Week, an annual gathering of a few thousand people in Stockholm, Sweden, who get together to talk about — you guessed it — water!  Discussions focus on everything related to water – from quality to quantity, the politics of water (and there are a lot of these), the price of water, and how water (or the lack of it) can cause wars between nations. PepsiCo has had a presence at World Water Week for several years, but this year is especially exciting, because we are launching the first-ever PepsiCo Water Report: “Water Stewardship: Good for Business. Good for Society.” This is the first time our efforts to conserve and replenish water use in our operations and expand access to clean water around the globe... Read more